Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD

By Jocelyn Sweet

People packed the pews at Centretown United Church, surrounded by its seasonal garlands and poinsettia, on a cold, rainy November night in Ottawa. They came to hear Lt.(Gen) (ret’d) and former Senator Romeo Dallaire share a battle story, a battle taking place far from any field.

Dallaire’s most recent book recounts his personal, 22-year struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. A story he says he wrote to raise awareness of and support for this “invisible, honourable injury,” and to inspire other military members suffering with it to come forward to access support and treatment. “I didn’t go through hell a third time [to write this book] because I enjoyed it,” he said.

CBC Ottawa’s Adrian Harewood hosted the evening and pressed Dallaire to describe, as he does in the book, the nightmares and resulting sleepless nights that inspired the title. Dallaire described graphic images, including adult soldiers facing child combatants, and working through the evening and late into the night to avoid sleep. He described post-Rwanda re-integration into his family, Defence headquarters, and Canadian society as “lonely.” He says he knows other returning service personnel to have the same experience.

Harewood invited Dallaire to try to recall himself as a young man, prior to his experience as United Nations Peacekeeping Force Commander in Rwanda in 1994. The Lieutenant-General’s (re’td) sense of humour showed itself and remained present throughout the evening. “A shit disturber,” he said. Dallaire frequently added moments of levity to an evening full of clearly distressing recollections for him.

Dallaire was born into, married into, and has raised, a family of military members. He sees a shift in how conflicts are fought, between his father’s time and that of his sons and daughter. He argues that new types of conflict will require new thinking about how to prepare the next generation of personnel psychologically, and that more remains to be learned about how to prepare them.

He believes that the more military members come forward the more medical and psychological treatment and support methods will be employed. The more they are employed, the better and more quickly they can be refined and improved. He told the audience that he hopes this will spare future generations of members the sort of solitary war he waged, which he describes as “living between the paint and the wall.”